One of Belfast’s biggest taxi firms has called for bus lanes to be opened up for drivers in a bid to help ease ongoing traffic congestion in the city centre.
Every day this week, Belfast Live is asking people across the city who have been impacted by the congestion what they would do to fix the traffic issues.
As part of the new series, we've been speaking to some of those in retail, hospitality, public transport along with commuters about what can be done to help make Belfast more accessible and alleviate some of the current congestion issues, especially in the run up to Christmas.
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Today, it's the turn of Stephen Anton, communications manager at Fonacab, who says ongoing work on Belfast’s Boyne Bridge is having a significant impact on the city’s taxi trade.
The bridge is due to be taken down as part of a year-long project to redevelop the public realm space around the new £340m Grand Central Station.
The Boyne Bridge is part of Durham Street, which runs adjacent to the recently opened public transport hub. The street is to be closed off for a period of 12 months to facilitate the works.
Mr Anton also highlighted plans to pedestrianise a popular cobbled street in Belfast's Cathedral Quarter, which have now been put on hold by the Department for Infrastructure.
Hill Street, which contains several popular bars and restaurants, was pedestrianised for a trial period in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic but plans to permanently close the area to vehicles have faced years of delays.
But Stormont's Infrastructure Minister John O'Dowd recently announced that said the plan has been paused due to "several competing work priorities".
Mr Anton told us: "It's interesting in Belfast because taxi drivers in most businesses around Northern Ireland are all self-employed and whenever a job is taken from a customer and it's sent out to a driver, the driver can decide whether he wants to take that booking or not.
"There's been a lot of discussion over the last few years, for example, about Hill Street and whether it should be pedestrianised, and I know that's not to do with congestion but Hill Street is a great example of something we would love to see pedestrianised because drivers don't like going into it as they get stuck in a queue of traffic.
"They have to look for their customer and it takes them forever to get out of it. So in the same way as drivers might avoid going to Hill Street if that area came up with a booking, drivers might also avoid taking a booking somewhere around Great Victoria Street or the Titanic Quarter because they know they're going to be stuck in traffic.
"As a result, what we found is that while our overall booking numbers are much the same because demand always seems to exceed supply in the taxi game these days, in the area specifically affected by the Boyne Bridge/Durham Street closure we're seeing a slight drop off in terms of the number of bookings that we're doing in those areas now.
"That could be because passengers are just not going into those areas in the first place or because drivers are voting not to take those bookings as they're more hassle than they're worth. Part of the problem we have with the network of roads around Belfast is this isn't New York, where you've got a grid system with multiple lanes going north and south, multiple lanes going east and west.
"Our problem is that the traffic tends to get condensed in the particular areas and in this case it's condensed into Great Victoria Street and Dublin Road. The issue with that is that in recent years the Dublin Road has gone from three lanes of traffic down to one lane of general traffic, one bus lane and one cycle lane and that's fine.
"There's a need for a bus lane and a cycle lane but that change was made on the basis that Durham Street would still be available to cars. But with Durham Street closed that means all traffic is currently coming down the Dublin Road and it's being bottlenecked into one lane and that's causing some of the congestion."
Mr Anton has a few suggestions which he believes might alleviate some of the city's current traffic problems: "Some of the things that we might suggest is perhaps a temporary realignment, perhaps combining the bus lanes and the cycle lane on the Dublin Road, which would free up one of the lanes there.
"Perhaps one of the other things is traffic and maybe exiting the city coming down Bedford Street rather than that being directed on the Dublin Road. Could it perhaps go down Ormeau Avenue, Ormeau Road and then rejoin the south of the city further out of the city? That way you're taking a little bit of the pressure off Dublin Road and Great Victoria Street.
"There's another aspect as well, if you're coming south from Great Victoria Street, there is two way traffic on Hope Street and Bruce Street here but there's no right turn available. Another thing we might suggest is to temporarily allow traffic to turn right so if it's going southbound and Great Victoria Street, it can go right on to Bruce Street and then on down Sandy Row, which gives another exit route out of the city.
"You might need a little bit of rehashing on the lights and a realignment of the traffic island that's there at the moment but if Durham Street's going to be closed for a year, surely it's small fry in the scheme of things.
"The problem partly is that roadworks go on all year round but because once you get into September, traffic moves a little bit slower because the schools are back. The weather has an impact on traffic speeds as well. All of a sudden, we're perhaps looking for well, why is the traffic moving slower now?
"Part of it is the amount of cars on the road, but then the issue of road works becomes much more important. There are some works which are scheduled like Durham Street, Grand Central Station and the Sydenham Bypass but there's other things as well.
"For example, if you go down the Shore Road in north Belfast, there's emergency sewer works on there at the moment so there's always going to be things like that, which will, I suppose, trip up the transport system and back.
"We don't have that many arterial routes coming in and out of the city, so once one gets snarled up, unfortunately, it creates problems for everybody," he added.
Video by Belfast Live videographer Harry Bateman.
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